i'm a fan

habit

pretty pictures, pieces of life.

things still aren't quite flowing...

so here's an old love poem i ran across in my google docs. the person this is about is long out of my life and my heart, but it's one of the few poems i've written that i can read without wincing (not quite true, but still).

missing

missing you

missing you is like a phantom limb,
the spot in my chest where my love for you resided

aches on rainy days
wakes me up on muggy nights
catches me in the middle of sentences and meetings, unawares.

missing you is like my toothache
it comes and goes
a dull pain i'm not sure how to get rid of

i know it will go away
i know.
i just wish there were a way to replay
the sweet beginnings,
the before instead of the after,
i wish there were a way to dwell in the sweet nights
and the early mornings,
the light instead of the dark.

the future won't return you to me, i know.
so dwelling on the past, which held such promise, will have to be enough.

all of the lights

kanye and i are having one of our many moments as i write this post. i'm just sayin'.

as i come to the end of the portion of my weekend that belongs to me (sunday belongs to lesson planning and grading and cooking and, hopefully, cleaning), i am sitting in my apartment peering at this screen and wondering if it is finally time to face my fears. there's this essay i've been writing for about 6 months now that continues to torment me because it deals with some of the most vulnerable and truthful things i've ever been able/willing to put down on paper. it's about me and all of the aspects of myself that have made me feel less than. it's the truth.

scary stuff, people. and there's a scary deadline attached- february 18th. in part, my return to this blog was not only for its own sake, but specifically for the sake of this article and the anthology it will (hopefully) eventually belong to- if one exists, maybe the other will too?

so now it's time, with my sierra nevada in my hand, for me to attempt to reconnect to 7-year-old me, and 12-year-old me, and 27-year-old me...and talk about all those things that make me question my intelligence and my sex appeal and my "me"-ness. i'll tell you how it goes.

oh also, i planned this whole food post that exists only on a legal pad in my backpack. i promise to make that happen this week because it has a lot of recipe links that "winter you" wants and needs to make your tummy happy.

in the thick of things

self-motivation is a much larger part of this adult life than i ever expected. i find, more and more, that the only one in my life who can truly and meaningfully challenge me is me.

at work i feel endlessly bored or bogged down by tasks that feel meaningless and unengaging, and it is only over the last few months that i have taken it upon myself to initiate challenges for myself. it's like HS all over again, choosing the honors track instead of regular not because my parents pushed but because i love that feeling of stretching, of growing, of doing something i've never done before, of meeting a tight deadline or accomplishing an impossible task. sometimes i actually think i can feel myself learning something new or lighting upon a new idea and those are the only parts of my day that excite me, minus my students making some meaningful connection or showing their wonderful personalities or being generally lovely. these are the moments i cling to.

this week a small group of teachers on staff at my school had the opportunity to talk to my charter network's founder about sustainability at the school. i was the only one that cited "space for creativity" as an important part of sustaining a teaching practice for many years. i was the only one that expressed a need to diversify her daily experience. i was the only one, the only one, the only one. maybe i'm a diva.

i miss the women in my life

the good ones. the smart ones. the ones that will tell me how fucked up i am. the thoughtful ones. the ones that think faster than me. the ones that will take care of me when i mess up. the ones that know which boy i'm staring at. the ones that know my weaknesses, the ones that hear my muttered comments to myself. the ones i trust. there are so few of them in my daily circle, in my weekly one, nowadays. i feel unanchored and unsure. i miss my friends.

this is the end of the innocence

i'm entering my 6th year of teaching (as in, it has already begun). i started my first blog during my first year teaching, which started about 6 years ago. my journey with words written into boxes on my computer screen and shared with the world has had its stops and starts, but i would really like to spend time spinning phrases and ideas into lines in this space as much as possible.

growing up has mellowed me out and made me less interested in sharing myself with the anonymous world out there, and my amped up professional life sucks away my time to immerse myself in good words and ideas, leaving me with less than amazing insights into the things going on in the world.

i could easily tell you the latest about yosmary's helpfulness, or how jericho finally turned in his op-ed, or even about the little work flirtation situation happening with the kindergarten teacher from cali, but all that seems unimportant in the face of tornadoes and a black president who is losing traction and a nation that is waiting for superman to land on our doorstep. none of the minutiae of my and my students' lives seems worth the publicity. and yet, it is that minutiae that is beginning to be all that really matters; my microcosm for seeing the rest of this big bad world of ours.

this is where i am. hear me out.

why did i get married?

both makes me want to avoid marriage...forever...and to be reborn as a non-black person in some country other than the united states. in "song yet sung" james mcbride uses the visions of a "two-headed" slave to represent his feelings on the current state of black life, and it's not a pretty picture. according to liz, mcbride's character, black men are dressed like boys for their whole lives and black people act like children.

sometimes i watch tyler perry and have nightmares of what my grandmother must be thinking. yikes.

random post?

i'm not sure why i'm posting, but i am. i'm just home from fun after work, contemplating saturday school tomorrow, and i'm okay. okay with my boyfriend being far, far away, okay with my at-work crush being all crushed out, okay with the huge stack of papers awaiting me, okay with students who struggle to be all they can be, okay with the frustration of life right now. okay with my 27-ness. okay.


good, though, is not here right now. maybe later. maybe next week, or next month, or next year. maybe.

it feels good to write again...though i seemed so much wittier, and interesting then, and the prospect of having to court readers again just feels oh-so-difficult...

boo.

buenas noches, world.

the fear that comes

i'm a little scared. i'm about to help start something big, and it's scary. as the launch of the school i'm helping to start comes closer and closer, i'm starting to feel the high expectations closing in on me...and i'm a little worse for the wear. i'm beginning to splinter and break up, to lash out at people i'd rather keep close, to show my fears through my actions without adding the expression. this is when i need to check myself and pull my bullshit to a full stop. i'm going to focus today on trying to recenter and giving myself a way out, a way back to who I'd like to be.

it has been a long, long while

and for the first time in a long time, i feel like writing. i feel like writing about this new life that i have created.

i've been teacher for, oh, 3 years and 8 months now. 8 months since the end of my year-long break, 8 months since i returned to my calling. it has been a rocky road. nothing about teaching at a great school in a high-performing charter network is easy. writing lessons isn't easy, managing students isn't easy, finding time to get all my crap done isn't easy...loving the kids as much as i do isn't easy.

today i felt like singing until i had a meeting with my boss that left me feeling teary. i cry way too easily, granted, but i didn't feel good after a week that left me tired and mentally drained. i worked and worked and worked my butt off all week, only to hear that everything i did wasn't quite good enough. being a perfectionist, getting constant feedback is hard- obviously noone is ever perfect when working with other people (there's always tons of room for mistakes), but sometimes you don't want to hear it. sometimes you just want to try to feel good about what you've done without any critical feedback. :/

forever learning.

next week i'm off to california for 10ish days with 63 kids...whoo hoo? we'll be visiting my alma mater along with other schools and i'm super excited to spend some time having fun with my loves. wish me luck- i'm rooming with some of the biggest drama queens in the grade!

feels good to be back...